


Hitting The Ground

by Littlebiscuits



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: M/M, Spoilers, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 14:52:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14475063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebiscuits/pseuds/Littlebiscuits
Summary: In which poor life choices are made.





	Hitting The Ground

The first thing Rook does when the world has stopped shouting, shooting at him and being on fire, is put his back against a tree and carefully check himself over.

There don't appear to be any gaping wounds, he's not bleeding from anywhere he shouldn't be, and he can move all his fingers, joints and ankles. His left arm is a little bit stiff, something not quite right on a turn. So it might be broken. He gives it a careful poke, but doesn't feel anything out of place under the skin.

Rook can't always tell if he's been hurt. His pain sensors don't really work properly.

It's a genetic thing.

The peaceful moment turns out to be pretty brief, before the world starts being on fire again, and Rook's expected to make a start on putting it out. He has a lot of responsibility all at once, and a bunch of new friends. There is also a lot of unwanted, bullet-shaped attention, and then posters with his face on, and the word 'Sinner' emblazoned underneath. At that point he hadn't really done all that much. So he chooses to take it personally.

He manages not to break any limbs, though he's not sure how. His checklist becomes more haphazard at that point. If everything still bends the right way, it's probably good.

Grace is in charge of dealing with any bullet holes or shrapnel that he doesn't notice. Her calm, careful digging with a set of tweezers doused in alcohol or held over a lighter is starting to become the nicest part of his day. It usually means all the shooting has stopped. She's currently an inch into the curve of his shoulder, and Rook's eating what he thinks might be the world's most delicious sandwich, when he catches Nick staring.

"That never gets any less fucking weird," Nick admits. "You really can't feel that?"

"I can feel it," Rook says around a mouthful. "It just isn't an unpleasant feeling, sort of muffled, itchy."

Boomer is laying at Rook's feet, hoping for sandwich bits.

"I don't get it," Nick says, and his face is still unhappy.

A lot of people didn't.

Rook had had a girlfriend once, Beth. She'd been everything his life wasn't at the time, unpredictable, dangerous, exciting. She'd stay out with him all night, she never wanted to go home.

He'd been too young to understand all the things she was working through. He'd let her hurt him. In a way she couldn't hurt anyone else. And then she'd hurt him in the only way he could feel it.

It wasn't the healthiest relationship.

But it was the most in love Rook has ever been.

Hope County on fire sort of reminds him of her.

 

~

 

The first time he meets John Seed the man tries to drown him.

It's probably less than a minute underwater, but feels uncomfortably longer. A smothering sensation, all force and pressure threaded through with panic. Rook wonders if drowning hurts, he assumes so, he's never thought to ask.

He's saved by Joseph Seed, of all people. 

John looks amused by the whole affair, and his smile seems familiar, something dragging at the back of Rook's memory, like he knows what's going to happen next.

He never gets to find out what's supposed to happen next. Because Pastor Jerome shows up. Rook's not sure how he escapes the crash intact. The force of it makes all his bones rattle, but he seems to be in one piece.

 

~

 

The second time he meets John Seed, after kicking the hornet's nest enough to get his attention, it's an intimate setting for three. There's less religious imagery, but a lot more crazy. Hudson looks like she knows exactly what's coming once the conversation is done. She's already been there too long. Rook may not know what pain feels like, but he knows what it looks like.

John gives him a choice, which one of them he's going to hurt first, and that...well, that might be the easiest choice Rook has ever made.

Hudson is dragged out of the room, because apparently torture is a one-on-one affair. Rook tries to work out how to get out of the chair, without throwing himself down a flight of stairs and probably breaking his neck in the process. He settles for turning his hand back and forth through the rope, scouring skin off until he gets enough lubrication and room to drag it through the loops.

But he's not alone nearly long enough, before John is back, all smiles, enthusiasm, and unhealthy obsession with mutilation. He still seems weirdly familiar, though Rook is certain they've never met.

When John Seed crouches in front of him, with a screwdriver in one hand, and crazy in the other, it all suddenly makes perfect sense. Why this feels like something that's happened before. Rook stops dragging the rope back and forth over his wrist, because that's the kind of personality revelation that requires a moment. He's not sure what to think about it.

John's already talking, but Rook can't stay and chat. He may not be able to feel much of the stabbing and flaying John probably has planned, but he's pretty sure mutilation is going to be really inconvenient. It's a good job he already has a loop of rope to his first knuckle.

The next time John tips his head forward, Rook kicks him in the face. 

It's a bad angle, and he barely gets any force behind it, but Rook has to hand it to him, the man gets kicked in the face like a fucking pro. John slams backwards, and almost immediately gets a hand down to catch himself.

Rook's barely out of the chair and shaking rope off his arm, before John gets a grip in his hair and tries to haul him back again. It's been a while since Rook has been in an unarmed brawl, and John Seed does not fuck around. Though he seems to be enjoying himself, he seems to be enjoying himself more than is strictly warranted. But John has been relying on pain as his weapon for far too long, and if there's one thing Rook is very good at, it's getting hit. 

John is quicker, but Rook is bigger, and he only has to take two swings from a hammer against the meat of his arm before he slams the back of John's hand against hard steel, and makes him drop it. And then he has John up against one of the pipes at the back, one solid thigh pinning him still, trying to get his free hand on a wrench from the table while the other keeps John from claiming any of the tools scattered behind him.

Only suddenly John's biting into his mouth like a starving man. 

And Rook can taste blood.

It's instinctive really, formative years, a little violence from someone that looks at him like they can't decide whether to bleed him or fuck him. Something old and familiar. When he hadn't wanted someone who wasn't dangerous. 

Rook kisses him back.

That doesn't seem to happen often, or maybe ever, because there's a second of strange stillness, and then fingers against his skull, pulling him closer. It's messy, and hard, John kisses like it's a punishment. Or like he's afraid someone will punish him for it. John presses in to Rook's thigh, grasps the edge of his jeans, a naked slash of waist. John's mouth is still open, breathing into his own, and it's too easy.

Rook should stop. He needs to stop. This is fucking insane. Instead, he gets a hand in John's vest, snaps the buttons through the holes without even thinking about it. The other man's hot underneath, solid under Rook's hands. 

"Yes," John says, fierce little bursts of air, over and over. John's fingers are picking at Rook's belt, a jittery impatience that almost feels like anger. His teeth keep returning to Rook's jaw, where he breathes hot laughter, and there's always the promise, the possibility, that he might bite all the way to the bone. 

John's shirt ends up flung over a pipe somewhere, chest and arms a mess of black and red, that Rook can't help but get his hands on. He's lean and long, and he has more scars than Rook, some of them tattooed over, messy and careless. Rook's shirt ends up on the floor and John pauses there, looks at him, before his nails slowly dig in, and he draws them back together.

It's like sliding downhill, at the top it's easy to grab a handhold, steady yourself, climb back up. The further you start to slide, the more momentum you pick up. Once that happens, the only thing that matters is hitting the bottom in one piece.

They both end up on the floor, half a slide and half a push. The metal is cold, and John Seed has aggressive fingers that dig in like they don't know how to do anything else but hurt people. Rook lets him pull, wants it, wants every second of it with a sharpness that surprises him. Pressed together, John's skin is hot, taut between every scratched word and broken line of skin. He laughs against Rook's throat again, though it's followed by a prickle of heat and then cold against the muscle of his shoulder.

When Seed leans back his teeth are bright red, and Rook thinks he's left their imprint on his skin.

Rook tears John's belt out of his pants, and it makes an almost impossible amount of noise falling down behind the pipes somewhere. It's easy to unzip him and shove a hand inside, to find rigid warmth under his fingers. John's teeth clack together like Rook punched him. He groans, and the sound mangles its way into a word. His favourite fucking word.

John's probably been hard since they started fighting, eyes huge like he's drunk, impulse control for shit. Rook has no idea how Joseph has been getting him to follow the rules.

Unhealthy coping mechanisms, Rook's brain provides helpfully. We've been through this before, it didn't end well. We're old enough to know better.

But he's already pulling John's pants down his thighs and off, tossing them across the room, one boot skidding after them. Rook remembers what this felt like, he remembers how messy and stupid it was. He remembers wanting it so badly he couldn't breathe. John gets his own hands down the back of Rook's jeans, fingers sliding aggressively and impatiently low. They don't so much take liberties as claim ownership. A shivery obscenity is breathed against Rook's mouth, before John is kissing him again.

Rook shoves him back, edges his thighs apart.

"You think I'm that easy," John says thinly, but there's no breath in his voice, nothing but the shaking, hoarse edge of fucking desperation.

Rook drags John's mouth open, feels the hard edges of his teeth and flattens his fingers against the wet length of his tongue. He gets a handful of blood and spit and uses that to stretch him open while John shudders, breathes one curse after another, thighs twitching and sliding open wider, cock jerking against his stomach. Rook fits himself between, finds the hottest part of him, sets and angles himself. His hand circles John's neck, holds him down and pushes inside. All the air catches in John's throat, shudders out again in bursts. Rook's bloody wrist smears a pattern across his chest and neck, spots of red in his beard. His other hand grasps John's thigh and lifts sideways, spreads him out and goes deep, and then he does it again, and again, until it's almost easy. Until John braces a hand on the shelf behind his head and pushes back onto him.

Rook leans down and kisses him, doesn't even think about it at that point. John's teeth are sharp but he doesn't bite this time, he doesn't bite, he just opens and kisses him back, and smiles that crazy, crazy smile. Rook tries his best to shake it from his face. Blood drips from his shoulder to John's chest, spattering the jagged edges of a scored through word. Rook wonders if there'll need to be a new word dug in somewhere, on some clean patch of skin. He wonders if John will do it himself.

John's eyes are blown wide, teeth clenched, but he's not fighting Rook, he doesn't say anything but _yes_ , fingers scrabbling at the tools strewn around them. Breathing wet, strained laughter that sounds delirious and pained at the same time.

Rook's hand moves, from throat to waist, digging in the bend, pulling John's body down to meet his on every thrust. John grasps his wrist, so tight Rook can feel the pressure on the skin, nails dragging in the torn edges, the difference between sharp and soft pressure.

He watches John swallow and swallow, other hand spread on the metal, fighting the urge to touch himself. Rook kind of wants him to do it, wants to watch him do it. But instead there's just a low groan of refusal, Rook's shifting hips, and tightness that's turning all of Rook's good sense into liquid.

Until John flexes, and then claws his way upright, one hand round the back of Rook's neck, the other suddenly grasping and cold at his back, no, too thin to be a hand - Rook's pretty sure John just stabbed him in the back with a fucking screwdriver. But that suddenly seems less important than the way the man suddenly clenches like a vice around him, and then breathes out something soft and obscene when he comes. 

Rook watches John fall to pieces, barely realises he's lost all solid ground himself until he's driving in, as deep as he can get, into the cradle of John's thighs. This is the only thing Rook really feels, and maybe that's why he makes so many poor life choices. But choices have been made. The barn doors have been left open, and everything is on fire.

When the world makes sense again he has his face pressed into John Seed's throat, mouth open, he can taste his own heartbeat. There are fingers at the back of his neck, moving absently in his hair. John Seed is humming something, quietly, breathlessly. Something religious and crazy no doubt. Rook's lucky he didn't get stabbed again while he wasn't paying attention. Though he is forced to take stock of exactly how messed-up this situation has become, of how he didn't do a single, fucking thing to stop it. They're both a mess, Rook has a screwdriver in his back, there's blood everywhere, and he's laying in long streaks of come.

He pulls out slowly, carefully. John makes a noise, soft and protesting, it drags along Rook's nerves, almost makes him want to stay. When Rook reaches over to grasp his shirt John's fingers catch for a second on his wrist.

Until Rook knocks him out with a wrench.

Rook thinks that definitely makes him an asshole. But, in his defence, John did stab him in the back first, and definitely intended far worse. Also, this was probably the stupidest thing Rook has ever done, so he's not thinking amazingly clearly.

He reaches behind him, finds a handle jutting, and very carefully tries to ease it out the way it went in.

A few swipes at his back reassure him that's he's not pouring blood.

This was a...mistake is the only word he can think of, but that somehow doesn't seem punishing enough.

He'll think of a better word later. First, he has to get the hell out of here.


End file.
